Seoul – Seoul prosecutors on Monday accused North Korea of hacking into the email accounts of dozens of South Korean government officials this year, the latest in the series of suspected cyber attacks by Pyongyang.

Investigations showed a “suspected North Korea-operated group” attempted to hack into the emails of 90 people – including officials at the foreign, defence and unification ministries – from January to June, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement.

“The passwords of 56 accounts were stolen,” the statement said.

The hackers set up 27 phishing sites in January posing as popular portals like Google and South Korea’s Naver, as well as government and university websites, to steal the passwords.

The prosecutors said the malicious codes used in the latest attack were the same as the ones used by North Korea in previous attacks on the South.

An investigation is still ongoing to see if any confidential information may have been leaked.

The latest cyber attack comes just days after South Korean police said the North stole the personal data of over 10 million customers at South Korean online shopping mall Interpark.

Interpark was unaware about the attack until July 11, when it was blackmailed with threats to publicise the leaked data unless the company paid three billion won (US$2.7 million).

The National Police Agency said the North’s main spy agency — the Reconnaissance General Bureau — had organised the hack in a bid to earn hard currency.

Tensions on the divided Korean peninsula have been running high since Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test in January, followed by a series of ballistic missile tests.

The provocations have put North Korea under the toughest sanctions yet from the United Nations as well as mounting individual sanctions by countries like the US, South Korea and Japan.

Seoul has in recent years blamed the North’s hackers for a series of cyber attacks on military institutions, banks, state agencies, TV broadcasters, media websites and a nuclear power plant.

The North operates an army of more than 1,000 hackers who stage hacking or cyber attacks targeting Seoul’s major institutions or key officials, according to the South’s spy agency.

A look at North Korea’s Kim Jong Un

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AFP, Reuters

Phnom Penh – A Vietnamese man has claimed he is the real father of a woman whose plight gripped Cambodia after she apparently spent 18 years living in the jungle, her adoptive family said Monday.

The paternity claim, which the woman’s adoptive family now believe is genuine, adds a new twist to a saga which began in 2007 when a naked and filthy woman was discovered trying to steal food from a farmer.

The woman – soon dubbed “jungle woman” by Cambodians – was found hunched over like a monkey, scavenging on the ground for pieces of dried rice.

She was taken in by a Cambodian family who identified her as Rochom P’ngieng, a girl who went missing in 1989 while herding water buffalo in Ratanakiri province, around 600 kilometres (400 miles) northeast of Phnom Penh and home to some of the country’s wildest jungle.

Now a 70-year-old Vietnamese man, named Peo, claims the woman is in fact his daughter who went missing in 2006 and has a history of mental health issues.

Rochom Khamphy, a member of the adoptive family, said Peo recognised her after seeing recent photos on Facebook.

“He claimed she is his long-lost daughter,” he told AFP by telephone. “He recognises her by a spot on her lip, ear conditions and a scar on her left wrist.”

The Vietnamese man has since made two visits, the latest on Saturday, and has agreed to pay the woman’s adoptive family $1,500 for taking care of her.

Khamphy said his family were inclined to believe the man is her father and were awaiting approval from the Cambodian authorities to give her back.

“If she was not his daughter, he would not want her back because she is mentally ill. He said he feels pity for her, that is why he wants her back,” he said.

In a letter given to her Cambodian adopted family and seen by AFP on Monday, Peo said his daughter was called Tak.

“Recently some young villagers suddenly found her information and pictures online. They showed me and I discovered she is now in Cambodia, raised by Cambodians,” Peo said.

Chhay Thi, provincial coordinator for local rights group ADHOC, told AFP he was monitoring the transfer process for any signs of human trafficking, but added he was inclined to believe Peo.

“Their faces are similar. If she is not his daughter, he would not take her back because she is mentally-ill,” he said.　

Tokyo – Tokyo’s new governor Yuriko Koike on Monday credited her landslide victory to having stood up to the powers that be in Japan’s ruling party who didn’t want her to run.

Koike, 64, was elected Tokyo’s first female governor in the Sunday vote, winning more than 2.9 million votes, far outpacing the nearly 1.8 million ballots cast for closest challenger Hiroya Masuda.

Masuda, a former governor of Iwate prefecture in northern Japan, was the favoured candidate of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partner.

The LDP spurned Koike, an LDP member, for failing to seek its approval before announcing her candidacy, with a top party official calling her “selfish”.

Koike, however, had the last laugh after her campaign drew huge crowds during street rallies ahead of the vote.

“I fought this race without support from the party, and people joked I was like the sole player in a theatre company,” she told reporters early Monday.

“But in the end it allowed us to move freely rather than restricting us.”

The election was called after previous governor Yoichi Masuzoe resigned over a financial scandal involving the lavish use of public funds on hotels and spa trips — the second successive Tokyo leader to quit.

A key challenge facing Koike will be to get a grip on Tokyo’s troubled path to hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics, which has been plagued by scandals and cost overruns.

She vowed late Sunday to be transparent on the budget and restore the trust of voters in the sprawling metropolis of 13.6 million people.

Her defeat of Masuda, a veteran administrator who had won plaudits as governor of northeastern Iwate for 12 years, was a huge embarrassment for the conservative party.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the government’s top spokesman, expressed disappointment that Masuda lost but hinted the LDP could work with Koike.

“It is important for the central government to co-operate (with the new governor) for the benefit of the Japanese people,” he said.

The party having backed the wrong horse is also embarrassing for Abe, who has vowed to improve conditions for women in male-dominated Japan so they can better contribute to the economy by taking senior positions in business and government.

But he personally never campaigned with Masuda at his street rallies, while local media reported that the prime minister, who had once placed Koike in key national security posts, may have tried to distance himself from his party’s harsh stance towards her.

Besides facing opposition from the LDP, Koike was also subject to verbal abuse from Shintaro Ishihara, who served as governor for 13 years.

“We should not allow the old, old woman with a heavily powdered face to take the reins of Tokyo politics,” Ishihara, 83, said at an LDP rally in support of Masuda.

Koike calmly refuted the attack, explaining that she has to cover a mark on her face, which observers say gathered sympathy from voters.